


Of Bloodlines and Bastard-Born Sons

by sabaceanbabe



Category: Chronicles of the Cheysuli - Jennifer Roberson
Genre: F/M, Yuletide 2009
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-12-20
Updated: 2009-12-20
Packaged: 2017-10-04 16:51:27
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,199
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/32367
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sabaceanbabe/pseuds/sabaceanbabe
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>But in the end, he had bitten off the words and sent her away, cursing himself for a coward, knowing that the longer he continued the ruse, the harder the truth would become.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Of Bloodlines and Bastard-Born Sons

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Lyss](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts?recipient=Lyss).



"Ha!" Keely shouted as she came in for an attack, and a triumphant grin spread across her face; that grin faded as Sean's blade slid beneath hers. With one smooth flick of his wrist, he sent her sword flying toward the edge of the clearing. "_Ku'reshtin_!" she accused, not for the first time.

Sean threw his head back and laughed. "Ah, Keely, lass, ye'd do yourself a favor if ye'd not wear your intentions so plainly on your face." They'd been going back and forth with blades all morning and this was the third time he'd disarmed her. And each time she'd been sure she had him at some disadvantage. Still chuckling, he wiped the sweat from his brow with his left sleeve as Keely bent to retrieve her sword. Sean didn't bother to hide from her the fact that he enjoyed the view. Straightening, she scowled at him, which only fueled his amusement.

Blade held in a firm grip, Keely stalked toward him. The lass had a temper, but Sean held his ground and his grin, daring her to attack again. But she surprised him.

"Show me," she said. Her words would have been a demand had her tone held anything other than entreaty. In a graceful motion – no gesture of submission, for Keely of Homana would neither submit nor surrender to any man – she extended her sword toward Sean. "I want to learn."

"Do ye, then?"

She nodded, her expression earnest. "Aye."

"And what is it that you want to learn, lass? For I'm thinking 'tis patience that ye need, and I can't teach you that."

She chose to ignore his comment. "Three times you disarmed me, Rory. Show me how."

"So that you might return the favor? Now why would I want to do that?"

"So full of questions! Are you afraid, Erinnish?" Sudden laughter lit her blue eyes, and again he was surprised, not just by Keely's reaction, but also by his own. More than ever, Sean felt he walked a dangerous line.

"Aye, mayhap I am, at that," he told her.

Keely tilted her head to one side, never dropping her gaze from his. "Will you not teach me?"

He straightened, studying her for a moment, and then sheathed his sword. Hands free, he stepped around behind her, a move she didn't expect, for she stiffened. "I'll teach you," he told her, reaching around her with his right hand, resting his left on her hip. He wrapped his fingers around her right wrist, exerting subtle pressure until she adjusted her grip and the angle of her blade.

As she made the minor muscle adjustments, Keely took an unconscious half-step back, stopping with her backside against Sean and he found himself thinking things that he knew would have her sinking that sword into certain parts of his anatomy. She turned her head slightly, enough so that she could look questioningly at him from the corner of her eye, which brought her into even closer contact. Sean grinned wolfishly.

"Keep moving like that, lass, and I'll be thinking you want me to teach you something else entirely," he teased. She pulled away from him so fast it was like she'd been bee-stung and he laughed aloud. "Peace, Keely," he said, hands raised in surrender, "I'll teach you the _sleamhnaigh_."

***

Extending into the afternoon, he showed her a thing or two about swordplay; she proved to be an apt student, not such a surprise. And when they finished, breathing heavily and dripping sweat, Sean asked her to tell him a thing. To make him feel what it was to exchange man-shape – or in her case, woman-shape – for beast. It was something he'd thought about for a very long time, but since that day she'd changed in front of him, it had been in the forefront of his mind. He thought she would refuse to answer, she was silent for so long, but then she told him to sit.

So he sat at the edge of the clearing and he closed his eyes as she bade him. His back against a tree, long legs folded in front of him, Sean allowed Keely's words to flow over and through him. Her voice, low and mesmerizing, twined itself around his soul as she told him of magic and of losing herself to the change. She spoke of the caress of wind on wings, of seeing the colors and lines of the air as she flew, the scent of sounds she felt in her bones, and of a lightness of being anathema to unblessed, earth-bound creatures such as he.

Unable to prevent it, Sean opened his eyes to look at her. Keely's body still knelt before him, her warm hands still held his, but Keely herself was somewhere else. Even as she continued to articulate _lir_-change and the absolute freedom of flight, he studied her strong features – high cheekbones and sharp angle of jaw, straight line of nose and wings of brows over slightly slanted eyes, their electric blue hidden by closed lids as she spoke.

Even as the impression flickered through his brain, long lashes, dusky gold, fluttered, those lids lifted, and Sean fell headlong into that electric blue. Keely's hands tightened on his. "Do you see?" she asked him, her voice no longer pitched quite so low but still every bit as mesmerizing.

And he was lost. Not to any kind of "earth magic," but to the very personal magic of one woman. Keely of Homana. Keely, who needed no man, especially not the one to whom she had been promised before her birth.

Unable to find his own voice, Sean – no, not Sean, Rory; she knew him as Rory – could only nod his head and stare; he saw all too clearly.

_By the gods, how can I ever compete with that?_

***

Days passed. Long, boring days with no word from his brother Rory, who should have arrived from Erinn by now. Every one of those days, one of his men rode to the port of Hondarth and each time returned to camp empty handed. Rory was late and Sean began to worry.

The boredom of camp life, for Sean could not risk riding into Hondarth himself, was alleviated for a time when Keely visited again. But even that visit did nothing to lessen his worry or lighten his mood, for her sole purpose in seeking him out had been to talk about "Sean" and bloodlines and bastard-born sons, about how long it might be before they could know if he had killed his brother or merely cracked his head.

Sean had wanted to tell her then who he was, that Rory was fine – if a bit embarrassed at losing the fight – and was only biding his time in Erinn to give Sean a chance to learn a bit about his betrothed. But in the end, he had bitten off the words and sent her away, cursing himself for a coward, knowing that the longer he continued the ruse, the harder the truth would become.

That had been the last he'd seen her until this afternoon, when she had appeared in camp as a mountain cat, startling the colt he'd been in the process of mounting and, in turn, sending Sean abruptly to the ground. The fall had momentarily knocked the wind out of him, but even so, watching her form blur from beast to woman had been an amazing thing.

But before he had a chance to exchange more than a word or two with the lass, her brothers had arrived, along with them their _lir_, the beasts bonded to them by the earth magic, and things had become a bit tense, to say the least.

Now, it was hours later and her brothers had gone back to Homana-Mujhar. At some point, one of his men-at-arms had begun tapping out a rhythm on a bodhran and then another had downed the _usca_ that remained in his cup and then picked up that rhythm, striking the hilt of a knife against the cup. A third, Owain, who never missed an opportunity to play, had drawn his tin whistle from its pouch at his waist, and music had begun to flow along with the _usca_.

The campfire itself seemed almost to dance as it flew by in a whir to the accompaniment of whistle and drum and clanking knife on tin cup. And it seemed that every time Sean's hand touched Keely's, however brief or lingering, a bit of electricity jumped from her skin to spark against his own. As it did now. He grinned at her as he twirled her around the fire. _Mayhap I've had a wee too much to drink…_

The clearing was filled with light and music and laughter; most of it male, true, but the lass held her own. If the men weren't all handpicked, he might be a bit more concerned at how much of their attention she held as she laughed and danced, but he was their liege lord and not a one of them would overstep their oaths.

_Oaths… Bonds… Rituals…_

After Keely's brothers had left, after she'd made clear to Sean the significance of giving him her knife before witnesses… _Gods, what a tangled mess I've made._

She'd offered him her clan rights – not a thing to be done lightly and especially not by the princess royal of Homana to a man she thought was a bastard-born thief. She had offered him _everything_, knowing full well how her brothers, especially Brennan, would take it. But could he rightly say that she offered them to _him_? Or had she offered them to the man she _thought_ he was? Brennan's words returned to Sean and his grin faded even as the dancing continued, carrying him along with it. "Sean" would be discommoded indeed, if it weren't for the fact that he _was_ Sean. He glanced along the line of dancers to Keely, thick golden braid flying as she whirled, arms momentarily linked, with one of his men. _How the hell do I tell her that I'm Sean and not Rory? How do I disentangle us from this web of lies I've woven?_

There was so much he wanted to say to the lass, but he could say none of it. If he told her any of the truth now, she'd take that knife of hers and skewer him with it. And he wouldn't even have the right to defend himself.

"Ah, ye _skilfin_," he whispered as he linked arms with the next dancer in the line, "now ye're just depressing yerself."

"Are you talking to yourself now, Redbeard?" Keely laughed, breathless. "'Tis a sign of madness, they say." There was a shadow – of pain or fear? – in her eyes, but it passed so swiftly that he couldn't be sure that it was truly there.

Sean smiled down at her. The firelight glittered in her eyes and suddenly all he could see was Keely, her flushed cheeks, her bright grin. The sight of her, the scent of her, the feel of her all combined with the _usca_ he'd consumed and the tangle of his own thoughts and feelings. Giving in to impulse, instead of swinging her on to the next man, Sean tightened his grip, slid his left hand around to the small of her back, and swung her away from the other dancers.

"I'm Erinnish, lass," he told her. "We're all of us a touch mad." And to prove his statement, he kissed her, no chaste brush of lips, but something with a bit more heat to it. He kissed her as a man kissed a woman he wanted to bed, and for a moment, for a wonder, she let him. She leaned into him, curled one arm up to his neck, buried her fingers in his hair. Her lips parted beneath his and he took her up on the invitation.

But at the touch of his tongue on hers, she pulled away, spun out of his arms. In a motion so swift he couldn't duck in time, even if he'd been of a mind to do so, her fist slammed into his jaw, snapping his head back. He tasted the coppery tang of blood, and reached up, grinning at her, to swipe at his mouth.

"_Ku'reshtin_. I am not your light woman." She was as angry as he'd ever seen her, but there was an edge of embarrassment to it, as if she was as angry with herself for responding to the kiss as she was at him for the kissing.

The music and dancing continued unabated and Sean laughed. "No, lass, that you are not." He lifted his hands in mocking surrender and she relaxed, rubbing at the knuckles of her right hand with her left. "Although I do seem to recall something about a knife offered and accepted…" His voice trailed off as he looked into her eyes. He sighed.

"Come, Keely." He held out his hand to her. "You may have my bed this night. I'll not trouble you, lass."

Her expression softened as she put her hand in his. "See that you don't, Erinnish." And she smiled.


End file.
